iOS 6 Users Encounter Pains With Exchange

Popular Apple rumor and discussion website MacRumors reveals that at least one Fortune 500 company is advising its employees not to upgrade their iOS devices to the latest version. The concern centers around a bug with Exchange calendar integration. A user who receives an invitation to a meeting and declines it winds up sending cancellation notices to the entire distribution list, canceling the entire meeting.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only major problem with Exchange support in Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad operating system. A discussion thread on Apple’s support forums indicates several users experiencing rapid draining of their device’s batteries when an Exchange account is configured. Apparently, in these situations, Exchange constantly communicates with the device unless push mode is disabled, causing the battery depletion. Thankfully, one user provided a solution that appears to have solved the issue. Unfortunately, it involves deleting all email accounts configured on the iOS device, followed by a hard reset.

And that’s not all. Engadget reports issues with some iOS 6 users not able to receive their Exchange email at all when push is enabled. So far, Apple technicians are aware of this issue but have no solution. These unlucky people simply have to do a manual check for new Exchange messages until an answer is found.

Unfortunately, these types of problems are commonplace with early adoption of a major new release of an operating system, whether for a home computer or a mobile device. Thankfully, my own iPhone 4S update to iOS 6 went smoothly and my Exchange mail, calendars, and contacts all synchronize with our corporate Exchange server without any trouble. A few of my co-workers haven’t been as fortunate. Here’s hoping for a quick resolution.